A giant explosion that passed through Mars originated from a powerful neutron star in a galaxy 11.4 million light years from Earth
- A giant explosion was detected in April by NASA satellites as it passed Mars
- Scientists say it came from a powerful neutron star 11.4 million light years away
- This is the biggest explosion detected since 2008 by NASA satellites
- Called GRB 200415A, it lasted milliseconds, but the updated instruments were able to capture enough data to follow a path back from where it came from
A giant explosion that swept the solar system in April sent investigating scientists deep into space to discover the source of the high-energy explosion – and the hunt is finally over.
A group of researchers led by the University of Johannesburg revealed that the explosion, named GRB 200415A, was released from a magnetar – a neutron star with a strong magnetic field – located in a spiral galaxy 11.4 million light years from distance.
The evasive visitor passed Mars in the early hours of April 15, which was picked up by a series of satellites, including the International Space Station, triggering the search outside the Milky Way and into the distant galaxy NGC 253.
The explosion, however, lasted only 140 milliseconds, but due to advanced orbital instruments they were able to capture more data than the previous flare detected 13 years ago.
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A giant explosion swept the solar system in April that sent scientists in deep investigations into space to discover the source of the high-energy explosion – and the hunt is finally over.
GRB 200415A was captured at 4:42 am ET on April 15 by satellites and was the first known giant flare to be detected since 2008 by NASA’s Fermi Gamma space telescope.
The recent explosion was also detected by Fermi, along with the Swift, Mars Odyssey and Wind mission satellites and the European Space Agency’s INTEGRAL satellite.
Gamma ray bursts (GRB) are the brightest and most energetic events in the universe.
They can only be detected when the beams are aimed directly at the Earth.
The evasive visitor passed Mars in the early hours of April 15, which was picked up by several satellites, including the International Space Station, triggering the search outside the Milky Way and into the distant galaxy NGC 253 (artistic impression)
GRB 200415A was captured at 4:42 am ET on April 15 by satellites and was the first known giant flare to be detected since 2008 by NASA’s Fermi Gamma space telescope. The recent explosion was also detected by Fermi, along with the mission satellites Swift, Mars Odyssey and Wind
Most of them occur billions of light years away and can last from a few milliseconds to a few hours when viewed from Earth.
Scientists have known for some time that supernovae emit long GRBs, which are bursts of more than two seconds.
In 2017, a team determined that two neutron stars spiraling into each other can also emit a short GRB.
The 2017 explosion came from a safe place 130 million light years away from Earth.
The researchers first believed it was a short burst of gamma rays, but after further investigation, they determined that it came from a magnetar
Professor Soebur Razzaque, of the University of Johannesburg, said: ‘In the Milky Way there are tens of thousands of neutron stars.’
‘Of these, only 30 are currently known as magnetars.’
‘Magnetars are up to a thousand times more magnetic than ordinary neutron stars.
“Most emit X-rays from time to time. But, so far, we only know a handful of magnetars that have produced giant flames. The brightest we could detect was in 2004. ‘
‘So GRB 200415A arrived in 2020.’
If the next giant GRB flag happens closer to our galaxy, the Milky Way, a powerful terrestrial radio telescope like MeerKAT in South Africa may be able to detect it, he says.
“This would be an excellent opportunity to study the relationship between high energy gamma ray emissions and radio wave emissions in the second explosion. And that would tell us more about what works and what doesn’t in our model. ‘